Since we started our foray into hockey land over 6 months ago, I will try to recall all of the memorable and significant events to the best of my ability.


It started with a conversation betwen my wife and myself regarding what Max wanted to do durring the spring of 2007. We had a very bad experience with soccer and tee-ball the previous spring/summer, so we gave Max a choice of sports he wanted to try this year. His choices were soccer, tee-ball, karate, and hockey. Max jumped at the chance to play hockey. We asked him several times over the next week that hockey was what he wanted to do....due to the cost that we were expecting, we wanted to make sure that hockey was what he really wanted to do. He kept saying "yes dad, hockey is MY sport". Alright, if that's what he wants to do lets start looking for learn to skate classes.

Now, our first concern with Max skating, is his feet. Max was born with severe bi-lateral clubfoot. At just a few hours old he underwent the first of two surgeries to correct his feet. Imagine if you will the bottoms of your feet turned up and in...his toes were pointed in towords each other and the bottoms of his his feet were where the tops of his feet should have been. In a condensed version, his surgery was a tenotomy...his achillies tendon was snipped, loosenening his foot to facilitate gradual repositioning of his feet with stetching casts and braces.

So with that in mind, I set out to try and find skates for him.

We are fortunate enough to have a great hockey shop very close to our house, so I took max there to get fited for his first pair of skates, The criteria had to be wide forefoot and stiff boot. He was fitted in a CCM Vector 10.0. We also got gloves and a CCM helmet there as well. We went to Play It Again Sports to pick up some shin and elbo pads, and while we were there we found a pair of hockey pants, hockey socks, suspenders, a wood stick for Max and me, tape, street hockey balls...good lord this is getting expensive fast...


We next went in search for the right class for him...We again are fortunate to have 4 rinks with multiple sheets of ice each within 5-10 miles of our house. We ultimately chose the Little Hawks program at the Darien Spotrsplex.

Untill next time....

Keep your stick on the ice.